amour
by The Neliel Tu
Summary: Failed attempt at being IC. Neliel and Nnoitra, bits of random out of place French, and beautiful scenery. Oh, that's a lie. Terrible grammar, but that's meant to be. AU-ish, but can be anywhere. It's actually IC.


_A/N; Err…don't mind me. I thought I'd try throwing bits of Francais in. And believe me, this is out of nowhere. Also, a few hints. _

_Well, maybe just one. _

_Read this like I'm just learning to master English. There are a few grammar issues, and strange sentences, but it's meant to be that way, I swear! _

_Also, it's AU-ish. I guess it could really take place anywhere, but not in Las Noches/Hueco Mundo. _

_Oh, one more thing. I think I can write, but I've been sick, so this might be a little off. _

_Then again, it might actually be rather IC. I can't tell. I'll play as if it's IC though._

_amour._

_un. [Joie de vivre]_

Long eyelashes brushed lazily across skin heated from a blush. Slender fingers curled around a bony wrist.

Joy. Was that the feeling that was to accompany all acts of love, or of lust?

Life. Was that what she experienced upon waking every dawn? And what of her dreams? Were they a part of her life?

Neliel could not recall. She stretched long, smooth legs across the bed and rolled over onto her side, a puff of breath slipping past her lips.

And _how_ could she ignore the sleeping figure beside her?

Lacking all ambition and will to move, Nnoitra snored lightly beside her. _A shift in pose made her consider that perhaps he would wake today, and perhaps he would face Neliel and the world. _

He crushed her when all she could do was support him. His needs outweighed her own. _And she could hardly sleep when he lay next to her._

Time and time again she wondered and struggled to recall what made her put up with Nnoitra.

_A brush of his lips across hers and she felt reminders, a quickening in pace to her heartbeat, and a fluttering in her stomach region that was not hunger. _

"Nnoitra." A sigh carried his name.

He stirred; her heart beat faster.

His hand lifted to her, and she gripped it with hers, falling upon him, covering him with kisses.

_Was it then that she realized she could never let him leave her? _

_Joy._ She found it whenever he opened his eye _(for the other was covered always by hair)_ and studied her, caught her eyes, she found it when he grinned at her, she found it in every simple _caress_, every simple _word_ spoken from his lips.

Joy in her life. She had discovered it. Of all places, why had it been Nnoitra?

_deux. [C'est la vie]_

He had not spoken to her in days.

_And she had begun to wonder what had ever made her love him, for there could be nothing in him worth saving. _

She had caught a glimpse, perhaps several, of him out in public.

_It was then that she began to ponder all of the things that she could have done wrong. _

And always, he was attached to another woman, one that Neliel found to exceed her own beauty in leagues. Not just a few leagues, but thousands.

_What could Neliel have done to deserve losing the one thing in her life that made it joyful?_

Her short _yellow_ hair, accented by a few, long tails, hot chocolate skin and jalapeno eyes. The perfectly formed limbs and breasts gave Neliel the chance to contemplate the assets and curves belonging to her.

_And it was then that she realized that perhaps Nnoitra's love for her ran skin and wallet deep._

Her eyes lifted above the top of her menu to peek out at Nnoitra and his seeming date.

_Halibel, wouldn't you like to stay at my house tonight? _

Neliel could not understand. What had made her desirability diminish?

"_Excuse me, ma'am, are you ready to order?_"

It was then that realization hit her, as golden eyes locked on with cerulean eyes. A short gasp formed in her throat, her heart throbbing in her chest.

"_What I want is not on the menu._"

And he understood. Her hand shook lightly under the table as he sat across from her without invitation, without warning, and she smiled.

_And she smiled without cause, without hesitation, and she placed her hand on his knee._

Neliel had never been one for daring acts. This was one to top the records.

_Light green brows lifted as she felt this man's hand close over the top of hers._

"Grimmjow Jeagerjaques."

"What?"

"It's my name. Thought you might like to know."

"Oh."

_And it was then that she discovered that the line between lust and love seemed to be thin. _

"What's yours?"

"Neliel Tu Oderschvank." And it was spoken like in a dream. Her voice light, innocent, childish, pure, bearing nothing but good.

_She felt his eye upon her before she saw him look up. _

For a long, heart-stopping, breath-catching moment, Neliel locked gaze with Nnoitra.

_It was only to her dismay that Nnoitra noticed. _

She only remembered snippets.

_"Who the fuck are you?" _

_"I'll fucking kill you for this!" _

_There was blood, so much blood. It was everywhere. Neliel's hands dripped with it as she looked up at Nnoitra, kneeling beside the still-warm body of what could have been her new love-interest. _

_And she was crying._

"You—" she wiped away her tears, smearing Grimmjow's blood across her face. Halibel's cries for someone to '_please help him, he's dying'_ went unheard in the background, merely white noise.

Everything she loved was gone. Her eyes went wide as she stared helplessly up at Nnoitra. Even Nnoitra, though he stood before her, was gone.

"I love you."

_Even that, when spoken aloud after a death, sounded too romantic, and too adult for Neliel's voice. She strained to sound more mature but could not find the tone for it, and instead, she gained her feet and left Nnoitra there, sobbing the entire walk home. _

_trois. [Je t'aime.]_

Even after everything, still she loved Nnoitra.

_Despicable, really, to be feeling such emotion even after he had taken an innocent life, and for what? The hand of a woman that he no longer loved. _

Her fingers trembled on the back of her phone, tempted as she was to call him, simply to hear his voice uttering the simple greeting that she knew so well.

_"Yo." Silence. "Who the hell's calling me? Neliel? I know it's you, dammit. Why won't you say anything? What the fuck is your problem?" _

_The click signified the termination of Neliel's end of the call. _

She stretched lazily, her toes pointed off the edge of her bed. How long had it been since she had seen the light of day? Everything was far too depressing for her to bear, while every curtain on every window remained shut.

_It was as she wanted it, dark and gloomy to match her shift in personality._

Then she wanted nothing more for to return to how it had been, once upon a world of sunshine and love.

_I love you._

It was nothing more than three words that she could not speak, and nothing that she had ever wanted to speak.

_Yet the fluttering in her stomach, the quickening of her heartbeat—they all led to the fact that she loved Nnoitra Jiruga, and none other than he. _

"_Je t'aime._" She breathed, her fingers resting upon a dusty windowsill as she stared out, imagining that Nnoitra stood below, imagining that he loved her, as well.

_quatre. [J'adoube.]_

In Tesla's eye, the smile that settled upon Neliel's face was no less beautiful than the frown.

_Of course, it was he that found every aspect of her being beautiful. Even her casual indifference at his touch became her beauty. _

How had she adjusted? Oh, Tesla knew of her passionate, stormy affair with the older man he looked up to—_though now it was hard to say just what Tesla thought of Nnoitra_—and he could not say he blamed Neliel for seeking him out.

_And how she lied to him. "Je t'aime, Tesla." How he hated it when she spoke in French. _

She had adjusted, after months or more of mourning. She was all but impossible to understand.

_And still, she lusted after the life she had once led along with Nnoitra. No matter how much he had taken from her, and how much he had killed the woman she had once been, she still loved him more than the crescent moon that hung precariously from a sky filled with shining pinpricks. _

_Adjust. _

And all Neliel could do was to love Tesla as best as she could. She felt as though she could not love him enough, for the love he gave her accounted for the years she went without being loved.

_But how could he love her with so few conditions, and so little apprehension? _

_cinc. [Je ne sais quoi]_

She did not know what it was.

_But how could she know when it had not made itself apparent, nor had it even attempted to display itself? _

She heard the faint knocking upon her door, as though whoever it was had become embarrassed simply by treading upon her doorstep.

_And as she pushed the door aside, she matched gaze with _him_ and she felt feverish._

Have you come for me? she wanted to ask. Words could not pass her lips, but Nnoitra seemed to understand. Slowly he bent to capture her lips with his, and Neliel wanted to cry from bliss.

_Why would a man kill but for if he loved? _

Oh, Neliel, and she could think nothing of Tesla fast asleep in her—_their_—bed.

Nnoitra's hand slipped past her waist to draw her in close, and nothing could stop Neliel from wanting this thing that Nnoitra held waiting for her.

_Instinct told her many things, the main one being that she would never leave Nnoitra again. What of Tesla? What of Tesla? The voice nagged at her ever so softly, tearing her conscience in two. _

She fell to weeping, turning away so that Nnoitra would not see the tears falling from her eyes.

Conflicting emotions filled her, tore her apart, _but how could she leave Nnoitra when he was the _one_ that she _loved, _she _loved_ him like nothing else could build emotion in her. _

Though she did not know what drove her to do it, she turned from Nnoitra. She ran to her bedroom and into Tesla's comforting arms, and into everything she had grown to love.

_So what if Nnoitra had come before Tesla? So what if he stirred her soul more than anything before? _

He had left her, and that was unforgivable.

-End.


End file.
